8 Underrated Comic Books That Deserve Their Own TV Show

8. Chew

Chew 1
Image Comics

Debuting in 2009 and concluding some seven years later, John Layman and Rob Guillory's 'Chew' has cemented itself as an icon of the independent genre - a testament to the brilliance of the industry that occupies a space outside of the Marvel/DC bubble.

The series focused on Tony Chu, an FDA officer and self-proclaimed 'cibopath' - a human who receives psychic visions after consuming a specific item - navigating a world where all poultry has been banned after a flu outbreak. Dark times indeed, but Chew was a ridiculously charming comic book. Its premise, focusing on Chu as he solves crimes for the FDA, certainly bordered on the macabre, but that doesn't detract from the comic's endearing qualities. If anything, it makes it prime TV material - a Netflix-type series if there ever was one.

Interestingly enough, attempts were made to bring the comic to the small screen several years ago, and now, an animated feature film is in the works starring the talents of Steven Yeun, Felicia Day and David Tennant. Though that may be the case, the potential for a serialised spin-off is certainly there, and should be kept on the cards in the event that the feature, much like previous attempts to bring Chew to a new audience, somehow fails.

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.